SF Bay Area, Part 1: Travel Journal

 

9/23/26 On the light rail to the airport

The San Francisco Bay Area offers me an ideal mix of family, friends, and fantastic sketching opportunities, yet I rarely visit (the last time was in 2018 when we were on our way to Yosemite). I just got back from eight days there, and I plan to visit more regularly in the future. Late September seems to be an ideal time to visit, weather-wise. While Seattle is definitely turning toward fall, the Bay Area was a lovely extension of summer.

9/23/26 Lunch while waiting for my flight at SEA. Later in the day, I wrote private thoughts at the bottom of the pages that I cropped out here. It's an easy solution to sharing some parts of a journal page without sharing everything.

Although I have several posts planned organized by city, I’m going to begin with select pages from my travel journal. A recent review of my fitness-walk sketches disappointed me because I haven’t been writing as much in my sketch journal as I have wanted to. With that in mind, I made an effort to write alongside my sketches during my week away, which wasn’t difficult, since I do tend to write more when I’m traveling. I didn’t bring along my long-form written journal, so in the evenings, I often wrote a couple of pages of impressions and thoughts in the travel journal. My daily-carry Uglybook functioned exactly as my travel journals have in the past.

9/23/26 At lower left is my habit tracker of step count, hours walked, and walking duration, which are things I usually record in my long-form written journal. 

I also consciously used these eight days as a “dry run” for longer trips I hope to make in 2027. I’m fairly set on media choices, but the question is always paper. Through 2019 (the last time I traveled internationally), I was binding travel sketchbooks myself, but I’ve decided not to do that going forward. So, the question now is, How many and which sketchbooks would I want to bring for, say, a 12- or 15-day trip? I’m sure I’ll be muttering and musing over that question for many months to come, so I won’t start here, but I’ll just say that this short-ish trip was helpful in clarifying my needs. Regardless of location or duration, I doubt my sketching approach would change much.

9/25/26 As always, sushi was my favorite food to draw! And I ate a lot of it (all fantastic) while staying in San Jose's Japantown neighborhood.

9/25/26 Caltrain rider. One issue I have with including lengthy writing is that I tend to use whatever pen I made that sketch with, which is often a brush pen. It takes much longer to write legibly with a brush pen than a marker with a fine tip (such as used below). I'd rather not use a brush pen, but usually I forget to switch pens.

9/25/26 Palo Alto

9/27/26 Berkeley playground

9/30/26 Everything I ate on this day except breakfast in my Airbnb

10/1/26 Rider on my light rail ride home. I like how this last page and the first page in my journal (top of post) are both about how I relate to other light rail passengers. They unintentionally form nice book ends for the rest of my trip.

Not Many Notes Here, Either

 

8/23/26 Green Lake Village

8/23/26 Green Lake

Like the commuter portraits I talked about a couple of days ago, I’m frowning at the lack of writing with my fitness-walk sketches, too. Sometimes making a sketch will prompt thoughts that I’d like to write about, but I save them for my written journal (which I work on mostly in the evening). Standing on the sidewalk is not exactly conducive to long-form writing, but maybe I can learn to be less verbose – boil down my thoughts to a couple of sentences.

8/27/26 Green Lake

8/31/26 These idiotic geese have the bad habit of 
wandering out into the street, but instead of crossing to the other side, they just meander around slowly, stopping traffic in both directions.

I tend to write a bit more in my sketch journal when I travel because I’m using it as a travel journal, too. As you read this, I am just getting back from a week away in which I set myself the goal of writing more in my sketch journal (and not at all in my written journal, which I didn’t even bring). I’ll probably eventually talk about that process.

9/7/26 Maple Leaf Park

9/15/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

I didn’t forget that today is Day 1 of InkTober! Although I have a plan, as I’m writing this more than a week in the past, my future self doesn’t know yet how successful I was at starting InkTober on a travel day. I may begin tomorrow. Will report in soon.

9/22/26 I remember when this old snag standing in Maple Leaf Park was still a tree. I don't think I ever
sketched it then. I thought it was time to finally appreciate it.

Not Enough Notes

7/14/26

6/20/26

Since I rarely ride the light rail or buses for anything but USk outings, sketch play dates, and other socializing, it’s fun to recall where I was going and who I was meeting with when I sketched these fellow commuters. (This is just a selection from my busy summer.)

7/25/26

8/9/26

Sometimes I make notes about the day on the bottom of the page (which I sometimes clip off and don’t share), but not often enough. I want my sketch journal to be more of a “journal” to balance the “sketching.” I’m going to make an effort to write more on the page.

9/11/26

9/13/26

There’s irony in that last statement. One of the main reasons I was so motivated to start a sketch journal in the first place was that I already had a lifelong journal writing practice; I wanted a daily journal process that would put more emphasis on sketching. Now I want more balance between the two.

9/11/26 During a longer rider than usual all the way to the south end of the light rail line, I had more time to capture a larger scene. Everyone near me had bags, airport-bound, so I knew they would be on board almost as long as I would be.

Leaf-Peeping Season is On!

 

9/21/26 Sugar maples, Crown Hill neighborhood

After Mary Jean and I sketched the enormous chestnut tree in Fremont, we went west to the Crown Hill neighborhood, where she knew that the sugar maples on North 80^th Street were near peak. A noisy arterial, 80^th is not a pleasant place to sketch, but it’s worth it to see these fiery beauties. They’re the same maples that Kim and I had sketched last year, though that was several weeks later and nearly past their peak.

As we shared sketches with each other, we officially declared it: Leaf-peeping season is on!

Fremont Chestnut Tree

 

9/21/26 European chestnut tree, Fremont neighborhood

A ginormous European chestnut tree grows in Fremont that is a marvel of nature. Decades ago, a fire hydrant was installed in the sidewalk with presumably plenty of space between it and the tree. Now the roots are growing around the hydrant like it’s just a minor inconvenience! Right now the leaves are still green, and it’s full of fuzzy, green chestnuts that I understand will eventually be the kind that are tasty to roast and eat.

The man who lives in the house behind the chestnut came out to rake. Although the tree still has most of its leaves, I can imagine what a huge job it would be to keep up with them once they start falling.

I first learned about this street tree, the widest-diameter chestnut in Seattle, from Taha Ebrahimi’s book, Street Trees of Seattle, which I used as a guide for sketching many street trees a couple of years ago. A recent Instagram post from Taha reminded me of it, and when she showed photos of the roots wrapped around the hydrant, I knew I had to sketch it. My sketches feel puny, though; I’d need paper four times as large to capture even a part of its crown.

How big would my paper have to be to capture this whole tree!

How annoying. . . like a seed stuck between teeth!

Cars & Coffee

 

9/20/26 David drawing the Miata's birthday portrait at Cars & Coffee

When I had proposed a commission to David Hingtgen to make my Miata’s birthday portrait, he suggested that we meet at Cars & Coffee in the Madrona neighborhood. A local chapter of a national group (like Urban Sketchers!), this community of car enthusiasts meets every Sunday morning, rain or shine, throughout the year. The large parking lot, apparently unused most of the time, is right on the shore of Lake Washington. On a chilly but beautifully sunny morning, I took the top down to drive my clean and shiny Miatamobile to Madrona.

Similar to the Greenwood Car Show, it was fun to see people greeting friends, admiring each other’s vehicles and chatting about their favorite subject. It reminded me of Urban Sketchers: People of all ages happily congregating with their tribe.

I started the morning by sketching David drawing my Miata (top of post) while he drew my Miata and me! (Woo-woo, a meta Miata moment!)

Skimming from Lake Washington

Between admiring and snapping photos of cars, especially convertibles, I captured a man skimming stuff out of the lake, a metal detector (I assume?) beeping as he waded along slowly (at left).

I also met nice people who told me about their cars and wanted to hear about mine. A young woman said a Miata was her “dream car,” especially one of the same vintage as mine. She had entered a drawing to win one before she started college soon, so I wished her luck. Her boyfriend, who had brought them to Cars & Coffee in his dark green Lotus, teased that she seemed to think Miatas were hotter than the Lotus (I heartily agreed and said so).

A patient pup

A young man, owner of the most souped-up Miata (2000 vintage) I had ever seen, described and showed me every modification he had made since he took ownership of it last January. He has already crashed it once, he said, but he repaired the damage himself at his father’s auto body shop. When I said I was sad that top-down weather would soon be ending for the season, he said he is looking forward to rain so that he could practice “drifting.” According to Google, “Drift racing is a motorsport where drivers intentionally break the traction of their rear tires to slide cars sideways through corners while keeping full control.” Who knew? Now I do. I pointed to my own Miata and said proudly that I try to keep all four tires firmly on the ground.

I figure that’s why she still looks so good at 30.

Not too shabby for 30!

This '00 Miata was so souped up, I hardly recognized it. The owner uses it to "drift race."

This man's roadster was so new that it still had temporary plates.

A perfect top-down day!

Miata’s Birthday Portrait

 

Portrait of my Miata on her 30th birthday, Sept. 20, 2026, by David Hingtgen

Initially the Miata's "eyes" were closed (as they usually are when
the lights are off), but David suggested that opening the eyes would
give the portrait more sparkle and character. He was so right!

On Sept. 20, 1996, I drove a brand new, bright red Miata home for the first time. Partly sunny, the day wasn’t exactly warm, but of course I took the top down. Without a destination, Greg and I drove around all afternoon, and it was the beginning of beautiful friendship. (See my post from the Miata’s 20th birthday in 2016, when I waxed nostalgic about my history with convertibles.)

To commemorate her 30^th birthday last Sunday, I commissioned urban sketcher and car artist extraordinaire David Hingtgen to make a portrait of my beloved.

The Miata's portrait just completed by David

It’s not often that one gets to sit for a commissioned portrait, so I decided that the Miata deserved a morning at the spa. A couple of days before the portrait, Ian of Dreamy’s Detailing Service came over to give the Miata a full detailing, inside and out, for the first time ever. Believe me, the old gal has never been this clean and pretty since that first day I drove her home.

9/19/26 Ian of Dreamy's Detailing gives the Miata the full spa treatment in my driveway. (photo reference)

To prep for the interior cleaning, I took every item out of the trunk, glove box, behind and (inadvertently) under the seats. It’s not a bad idea to completely clean out a car every couple of decades. In addition to several ferry schedules, road trip brochures and paper maps from the turn of the 21^st century, I found my 1995 edition of The Thomas Guide (which I’m sure I hadn’t opened since I got my first Garmin navigational device in the ‘00s).

Long-lost waterbrush cap

Bonus: A waterbrush cap turned up! I remember dropping it under the seat years ago when I used to sketch all winter in my mobile studio, but I couldn’t reach it. Of course, the waterbrush became useless without a cap, so I must have tossed it. I’m saving this cap for the next time I lose one.

Happy 30th birthday, Miata! You’ve been a fun, reliable, low-maintenance friend all these years, and I hope we still have many more together.

One of many relics from the past three decades that were buried and long forgotten in my car.